Upcoming Conference News
There’s a few big things happening in Q1 this year, so I’ve collected all the coverage together here for a quick(ish) rundown. First up: SXSW 2026 has unveiled new speakers. Among others, Spotify co-president and CTO Gustav Söderström is slated to appear at a SXSW keynote this year.
As has been covered previously, this year also marks the incorporation of Evolutions by Podcast Movement into SXSW’s business of podcasting programming. March 13th through 15th Evolutions will act as a home base for podcasting within SXSW, all with free admission (pre-registration is live and encouraged due to building capacity).
Before March, we’ve got On Air Fest in February. This week an official release from On Air Presents revealed an already-stacked guest list (RIP to the Wythe’s lobby when it’s time for the session with Alec Baldwin) has gotten even bigger. Including Pushkin Industries’ music interview podcast Broken Record recording a live episode with composer Wyclef Jean.
This year the Ambies from The Podcast Academy will be presented at On Air Fest the night of February 23rd in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The Academy has 32 categories to judge this year, with the full list of nominees provided in this Hollywood Reporter piece. Categories including Best Ad Read and the Podcast Advertisers Innovator Award, both sponsored by Sounds Profitable this year.
I have a bit of an announcement myself: I’ll be in attendance this year to cover the event, interview folks from all over the industry, and produce a new podcast directly from the halls and (chilly) streets of On Air Fest. Stay tuned for more on that.
Oh, and quick reminder to Sounds Profitable partners: On Air Presents has provided us with discount codes for partners planning on attending. If you’ve not booked your pass yet, hit us up on Slack or shoot us an email for more details!
What Would You Do If You Actually Loved Podcasting? by Tom Webster
After years of researching what drives podcaster burnout, Webster argues there’s a common methodology that needs to be reversed. Most podcast development cycles can be charted out with the core words behind those steps: WHAT, HOW, WHY, WHO. A system that should be reversed so it starts with who you want to make content for. A quote from the article:
“You have to start here, and I don’t mean with a demographic or an avatar or a target market. I mean with a specific human being. When I say start with WHO, I mean a person—what’s their life like? What are they worried about? What do they wish they had more of? Everyone who gives you their attention is a whole human with a life as rich and complicated as yours. This isn’t market research in the traditional sense. This is basic human curiosity about the people you’re asking to spend their finite, precious time with you. Never forget that regardless of topic, a podcast has to be an entertainment, and you can’t entertain humans if you aren’t deeply attuned to them.”
The freeing aspect of this is, as an individual, a podcaster has far more flexibility than a huge content production company or studio. They have to use audience surveys and abstract ideas out of data representing massive communities. Podcasters can actually form bonds with their audience. Replies, comments, Discord servers, there’s so many ways to make content FOR a specific audience and get direct feedback on how that’s working.
Continuing on down the waterfall: Why would that person listen to this hypothetical podcast? How should it be formatted? At that point the “what” (what should go in the episodes themselves) is largely an automated process because the steps have already been taken to figure out the show’s audience, what they want, and what format best meets their needs.
If a producer podcasts like they love podcasting, they would innately desire to know their audience. Connect with them, engage with them, understand what they want from the podcast. A process that, if done right, creates an endless font of ideas and creative fulfilment that feasibly could stave off burnout indefinitely.
Pushback to ‘Podcasts are dead’
The Times has published a piece titled Podcasts are dead – it’s all about video now. Writer James Marriott makes the argument that video podcasting’s growth is a signal of podcasting devolution, where “shows” are destined to outright replace “podcasts” as a concept until entropy is reached and video podcasts are simply episodic YouTube videos. Lower Street CEO Harry Morton does not mince words in his rebuttal. Even with legacy examples of TV coming for radio, claims of video killing the radio star have been exaggerated. A quote from Morton:
“At the end of last year, CUMULUS MEDIA and Signal Hill Insights shared with us that 92% of podcast consumers listen. Only 8% only watch podcasts.
Of those 92% who listen, do they only listen? No, many of them watch as well, but to say that audio is “dying” is complete rubbish. Growth and consumption are two totally different jobs and audio is doing the consumption bit just fine.
Video is a distribution multiplier not a replacement for audio.”
Podcasting is doing just fine.
Goalhanger Crosses 250,000 Paid Subscribers
As the headline says: UK-based podcast company Goalhanger is celebrating having crossed the 250,000 paid subscriber milestone. To give some further context on what that means for the industry, Podnews has done some math (and you know how much I love sharing figures). Presuming subscribers are paying an average of £6, that’s around £20 million in annual subscription income. Presuming half of that is Apple Podcasts premium subscriptions, somewhere between 1.5 million and 3 million GBP are going to Apple annually through Goalhanger. And the premium experience is worth the effort. With Podnews presuming around $20 CPM for four hypothetical ad slots that premium subs would have heard if they didn’t consume ad-free premium feeds, Podnews estimates the “loss” of potential advertising dollars amounts to just $2 million USD. Under a tenth of overall estimated subscription revenue.
As for the rest of the news…
- Canadian podcasters, listen up! The CBC is about to launch their 2026 call for pitches. Starting Monday, February 2nd (running through April 1st) Canadian podcasters of all stripes can pitch ideas for four core “umbrella” feeds run by the CBC at CBC.ca/pitch.
- Podscribe has grown their verification stack with the addition of radio airchecks and team signup links. The former automatically detects and logs radio ad placements, while the latter allows for smooth onboarding of large teams quickly.
- Oxford Road’s new ORBIT report looks at the world of Health & Fitness podcasts and how their ads perform outside of the January New Years’ resolution rush.
- Amplifi Media founder Steven Goldstein writes about the “liquid content era” podcasting finds itself in, as well as examples of how to best approach liquid content.
- Realm has announced they are handling distribution and sales for the first official Sonic the Hedgehog audio drama with Sonic the Hedgehog Presents: The Chaotix Casefiles, a narrative podcast that drops this coming Tuesday.
